"Care & Maintenance of Your Factory-Built Fireplace
Throughout history, fire has been crucial to human existence. Primitive people relied on fire to cook their food, to keep them warm and to provide light. Although we no longer depend on fire in quite the same way, images of children around campfires and holiday gatherings around an open fireplace abound. Our use of fire has changed over the centuries, so too have fireplaces and heating appliances that contain the fire and make it useful. Classical Greek and Roman homes contained simple fire pits. In Medieval Europe, simple masonry fireplaces were developed. In the 1800’s a nobleman, Count Rumford improved masonry fireplace design.
As in the past, masonry fireplace and chimneys are constructed onsite as the house is built. The performance of the fireplace was often dependent upon proper construction. Today, there are factory-built fireplaces, which are manufactured according to an engineered design. Proper installation, however, is still a critical factor in the safe operation of these units.
Q. What is a factory-built fireplace?
Unlike traditional site-built masonry fireplaces, most factory-built fireplaces are made of metal and may use a combination of insulated walls, glass doors, air-cooled pipe and blowers to circulate the heat produced by the fire. The factory-built fireplace and chimney are a complete system engineered to work safely and efficiently together. Both units (fireplace and chimney) undergo testing together, and are then are listed specifically for use with one another. In other words, a factory-built fireplace has a specific chimney that is appropriate for use with that specific fireplace.
Although models vary, factory-built fireplaces generally generate heat for the house in one of two ways. With the standard radiant heat method, the heat produced by the fire radiates from the fireplace into the room. This system is limited as to the amount of heat it will return to the house. The circulating air method uses louvers and at least one blower to force air along the hot walls, picking up heat and forcing it back into the living space.
Q. How is a factory-built fireplace different from a traditional fireplace?
Because a factory-built unit is so much lighter than masonry fireplaces, these fireplaces do not require the concrete foundation necessary for masonry. The insulation and/or cooling spaces built into these systems allow the back of the fireplace to be placed closer to combustible materials than their masonry counterparts.
Although most units are metal, pre-manufactured, modular, masonry fireplaces are also available. These masonry models incorporate special engineering techniques that are not used in most field constructed fireplaces, including a listed venting system. Like metal factory-built fireplaces, pre-manufactured masonry fireplaces reduce the clearance to combustibles and increase the amount of heat produced by the fireplace. These advantages, coupled with the lasting nature of masonry, make pre-cast refractory fireplaces and other modular masonry fireplace systems an attractive, but somewhat more expensive, alternative to the relatively inexpensive materials and construction of the mass-produced factory-built fireplace.
Q. What’s the safest way to use a factory-built fireplace?"................
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